Episode 1475: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Football and Basketball)
Date December 26, 2019 Summary In the first installment of a special, seven-episode series on the past, present, and future of advanced analysis in non-baseball sports, Ben Lindbergh talks to ESPN’s Bill Barnwell about football (the American kind) and then ESPN’s Kevin Pelton about basketball (48:43), touching on the origins of sabermetrics-style analysis in each sport, the major challenges, big breakthroughs, and overturned misconceptions, the early adopters, the cutting-edge stats and tech, the level of acceptance within the game, the effects on the spectator experience, the parallels with baseball, and more. Topics * Interview with Bill Barnwell * History and ease of analysis in football * Increased data availability * Aggressiveness on 4th down * Changing value of running backs * Problems with officiating * Increased passing rate * Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens, and New England Patriots as early adopters * Head coaches as an obstacle to implementation * Impact on draft strategy * Player tracking * Injury tracking and rule changes for player safety * Comparing across eras * Interview with Kevin Pelton * History and ease of analysis in basketball * Daryl Morey and the Houston Rockets * Overvaluation of points per game * Comparing across eras * Impact on the fan experience * Buy-in from players * Value of NBA draft picks and tanking * Load management * Quantifying synergy between teammates * Wearable technology * Positionless basketball Intro Superchunk, "Winter Games" Interstitial Ben Kweller, "Different But the Same" Outro Pernice Brothers, "How Can I Compare" Notes * Ben says that he and Jeff had the idea for the Multisports Sabermetric Exchange last year but could not find the time to record the episodes. * Bill rates football as a 3 or 4 (on a scale of 10) for ease of statistical analysis. He later says that he thinks football is where baseball was in 1998. * There is less of a need to innovate in the NFL because teams will still be extremely profitable even without a successful season. * Good indicators of how much a team uses analytics can be how much they pay their running backs or how often they go for it on 4th down. * Teams in the NFL struggle to evaluate prospects effectively and draft well. Lamar Jackson, the presumed 2019 MVP, was the fifth quarterback taken in the most recent draft. * Bill says that DVOA (Defensive Value Above Average) is the best predictor of team performance * On a scale of 10, Kevin rates basketball as a 6 or 7 for ease of analysis. * Basketball analytics has its origins in the 1980s and 90s, inspired by the work Bill James did with baseball. * NBA teams had been overvaluing the importance of points per game and not thinking as critically about shot selection. Too many players were taking long range 2 point shots. * The number of 3 point attempts in the NBA has nearly doubled in the last 12 seasons. * Kevin says that each team employs about three analysts. * The NBA is concerned about the impact of load management and tanking because of the significant impact on spectator experience. * On-court player tracking data is not released publicly in the NBA but is instead made available just to teams. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1475: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Football and Basketball) * The Hidden Game of Football by Bob Carroll, Pete Palmer, and John Thorn * For A Passing League, The NFL Still Doesn't Pass Enough by Josh Hermsmeyer * You Called A Run On First Down. You're Already Screwed. by Josh Hermsmeyer * History tells us the NFL is terrible at evaluating quarterbacks. Here's what it means for 2018 by Bill Barnwell * Go for It: The Story Behind the NFL's Fourth-Down Conversion by Kevin Clark * We Salute You, Founding Fathers of the NFL's Analytics Movement by Danny Heifetz * The NFL's Analytics Revolution Has Arrived by Kevin Clark * The Race to Make the NFL Draft an Exact Science by Kevin Clark * Football Outsiders * Kevin Pelton's archive * Player Efficiency Rating * New biometric tests invade the NBA by Pablo Torre and Tom Haberstroh * The 3-Point Boom Is Far From Over by Zach Kram * Who are the top NBA 'NDP-Rest' candidates for 2019-20? by Tom Haberstroh * How Kawhi Leonard Turned Load Management Into a Style of Play by Paolo Uggetti * Introducing RAPTOR, Our New Metric For The Modern NBA by Nate Silver Category:Episodes Category:Guest Episodes